The following compilation of articles containing statistics will be
updated frequently.

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Dove News Briefs: October 14, 1996

– Nielsen Media Research announced there are now 97 million. U.S. TV
households as of Sept. 2, 1996. 38.9 million of these house children 2
to 11.

– Viacom announced September 3, 1996 its MTV Networks will invest
$420 mil. over five years to create new animation and continue current
hits such as Beavis and Butthead and Rugrats.

– Advertising Age Aug. 5, 1996 reports ad spending on network TV
jumped 12.7% in 1Q ’96 to $3.4 bil. from $3.0 billion. the year earlier.
Syndicated TV advertising also rose 1.9% in the qtr. to $584 mil.
Television (including spot and cable networks) accounted for 54.3% ($7.9
billion.) of all spending ($14.6 billion.).

– Producer Stephen Bochco Aug. 23, 1996 agreed to tone down the
language of his new CBS sitcom "Public Morals" after
affiliates complained about its racy lingo

Parents Want Safety, Not Family

Friday, October 11, 1996 – By ELIZABETH MEHREN, Times Staff Writer

Research: Survey results indicate that moms and dads are far more
interested in the practical matters of daily life (no guns, no violence,
better schools) than political agendas.

The nationwide telephone survey of 500 mothers and fathers from
among the nation’s 58 million was conducted in mid-September.

Nearly unanimously, parents said they wanted less rhetoric from
government and business institutions and more practical help. They also
expressed widespread concern about the strain of balancing work with
being a parent…

‘Debate over children’s television heads for summit’

September 9, 1996

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – When then-Vice President Dan Quayle accused the
“Murphy Brown” TV series in 1992 of glorifying single motherhood,
he was widely ridiculed for not seeing the difference between real life
and make-believe.

But this election year, some of his biggest critics are taking a swipe
at television as a way to show that they too care about family values…

‘Respecting Children’

Canadian Approach to Helping Families Deal With Television Violence
V-chip Trial Violence Rating Scheme currently used in Canada

Hollywood Reporter
Wednesday, February 7, 1996
By Lisa de
Moraes
‘Violence study socks it to broadcast, cable TV’ A year long
study commissioned by the cable industry has found that “psychologically
harmful” violence is found on broadcast and cable networks. The study
was conducted by Mediascope.

The study says that perpetrators of violence go unpunished in 73% of
all violent scenes and that by the end of the program bad characters are
punished 62% of the time while good characters committing acts of
violence are punished only 15% of the time. Also, only 4% of violent
programs emphasized an anti-violence theme.

The study found that some children were more attracted to a program
if it was preceded by a parental discretion advisory.

About 2,500 hours of television were examined from 2,693 programs,
including 384 reality-based shows. The study monitored programs aired
between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., a total of 17 hours a day per channel.

For this study, violence was defined as any overt depiction of the
use of physical force or the credible threat of such force intended to
physically harm an animate being or group of beings.

Hollywood Reporter
65th Anniversary Issue
November 1995
By Noela Hueso

‘Top 10 Family Films By Box-office’

1. The Santa Clause        Buena Vista             $140,021,872
2. Pocahontas              Buena Vista             $139,242,512
3. Casper                  Universal               $100,237,375
4. Babe                    Universal                $53,337,975
5. The Brady Bunch Movie   Paramount                $46,574,582
6. The Jungle Book         Buena Vista              $43,196,003
7. Man of the House        Buena Vista              $40,068,323
8. Richie Rich             Warner Bros.             $38,059,575
9. Power Rangers           20th Cent. Fox           $37,765,144
10. A Goofy Movie          Buena Vista              $35,348,957

(8 out of 10 of these are Dove Family Approved)

Hollywood Reporter
65th Anniversary Issue
November 1995

By Joshua Mooney and Matthew King

‘What Hollywood Really Thinks… (or Surprise, Surprise!)’

A survey conducted by UCLA and U.S. News & World Report asked 6,300
entertainment industry decision-makers for their opinions on such topics
as sex, violence, religion and the media.

65% oppose organized prayer in public schools

91% support abortion rights

73% think laws should be written to protect gay rights

30% think violence in media is a factor in real-life violence
(compared to 57% of the public)

72% believe in God

56% say they have little or no faith in organized religion

America Online
October 7, 1995
Washington (Variety)
By Dennis Wharton

‘Poll Fuels Kidvid Fire’

60% of Americans support rules requiring broadcasters to air at least an
hour a day of children’s educational
programming, according to a poll released Thursday by the Center for
Media Education.

Nielson Media Research
1995

Average Daily TV Usage

Children:       2-11    2 hours 43 minutes per day
Teens:          12-17   2 hours 52 minutes per day
Men:            18+     3 hours 52 minutes per day
Women:  

18+     4 hours 28 minutes per day
Daily Home use: 

6 hours 59 minutes per day

Los Angeles Times
August 19, 1995

More than 3,000 adult movies will be produced worldwide this year –
more than double the output in 1991, according to Adult Video News, the
porn industry’s trade magazine in Los Angeles. About 70% of the world’s
X-rated productions are filmed in the San Fernando Valley.

Fact Sheet
August 18, 1995
Source is USSB Telescope Survey

‘Portrait of the American TV Household’

15% leave the TV on to keep a pet company

26% say they watch TV during dinner nightly

78% consider watching TV with their children to be a family activity

17% of VCR clocks are flashing ’12:00′

31% of Americans don’t know how to record a program when they aren’t
home

79% of Americans have at least two TVs in their homes

19% of those interviewed said that they could not survive without
television

Just over half of Americans do not “channel Surf”

28% say they watch more than one show at a time

54% say they “never” withhold TV as a punishment for a child

47% of households have a TV in a child’s room

Nearly nine out of ten households have a VCR, and one-third of those
own at least two VCRs.

America Online
June 18, 1995
News: A Los Angeles Times Poll

71% of Americans agree with Senator Robert Dole’s charge that
Hollywood is producing “nightmares of depravity”

23% disagree

However, it observed, most Americans oppose severe government
restrictions on entertainment.

A preponderance of every demographic group, including young people
(64%) and blacks (also 64%), agreed with Dole’s charges, the poll found.

The Hollywood Reporter
June 9-11, 1995
Chicago Associated Press

‘Kids’ doctors call on TV biz’

The American Academy of Pediatrics: "We are basically saying
the controversy is over… There is clearly a relationship between media
violence and violence in society," said Dr. Victor Strasburger,
chief of the academy’s section on adolescents.

Pediatrics June 1995. The 48,000-member group cited statistics from
past studies: More than 1,000 studies including a surgeon general’s
report in 1972 and a National Institute of Mental Health report a decade
later show a cause-and effect relationship between media violence and
aggressive behavior in some children.

By age 18, the average young person will have viewed about 200,000
acts of violence on television.

Despite concern about TV violence, it has not declined appreciably
in the past two decades; the level of prime-time violence has remained
at three to five violent acts per hour, and violence in Saturday morning
children’s programming ranges form 20 to 25 violent acts per hour.

The Harris Poll By Humphrey Taylor
Louis Harris and Associates
Information Services at 71154,
1995

‘Some Kids Wonder if Their Parents Really Love Them’

These are findings of a nationwide poll of 2,578 students conducted
in May and June 1994.

27% of children in grades three through 12 believe that adults
really don’t care about what they think or feel

25% sometimes doubt that their parents really love them

28% would like their parents to be more involved in their
schoolwork.

Boys (30%) are more likely than girls (23%) to believe that adults
really don’t care about what they think and feel

Older students in grades 10-12 are much more likely than younger
students to believe adults don’t care about them (36% to 19%)

Younger children, however, are much more likely than older children
to sometimes wonder if their parents really love them (32% to 16%)

The Hollywood Reporter
March 24-26, 1995
Durham, N.C. Associated Press

‘Study: Media violence hostile to your health’

Violent scenes raise blood pressure and increase the level of stress
hormones in the body. High blood pressure taxes the heart muscle and
stress hormones suppress the immune system.

The study monitored 22 women and 18 men. Viewers watched two
five-minute clips from the movie "Sleeping With the Enemy" and
two five minute clips from "Falling Down." In one of these
clips, the victim is female and in the other the victims are male.

Researchers found that the women’s blood pressure rose during scenes
of physical violence against women. Their blood pressure did not
increase while watching attacks on male victims. The opposite was true –
the men’s blood pressure rose only when the victims were male.

Verbal abuse did not raise blood pressure

Subjects who classified themselves as having high hostility levels
had greater blood pressure increases during the violent scenes than
those who said they weren’t hostile.

The researchers also measured urine levels of the three stress
hormones –adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol. Women had higher
levels of cortisol, the most damaging of the three stress hormones.
Cortisol suppresses the immune system and prolongs the negative effects
of the other two stress hormones.

The Associated Press Los Angeles Times
Feb. 27, 1995 February 27, 1995
Los Angeles (AP) By Claudis Pulg

‘Kids copy TV sex’

Youths ages 10 to 16 were asked to describe how television shapes
their values in the telephone survey released by the advocacy group
Children Now. "I think it pressures people my age," said
14-year-old Rayelyn Rodriguez of Sough Gate, Calif. "They think if
they see it on TV, they want to go do it too."

More than two-thirds of the young people said they are influenced by
television.

Of the 750 respondents, 76 percent said television too often depicts
sex before marriage.

Some 62 percent said sex on TV influences their peers to have sexual
relations when they are too young.

And about two-thirds said shows that portray hostile families
encourage young viewers to disrespect their parents.

The survey had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.

Two-thirds said shows such as "The Simpsons" and
"Married…with Children" encourage youthful viewers to
disrespect parents.

"With a show like ‘Married…With Children,’ kids talk back to
their parent and they always hit them up for money and stuff," said
Jesse Lunn, 13, of Mission Viejo.

The survey also found that 80 percent of children on commercial
television are white, and only 2 percent Hispanic.

Overall, the study of 80 broadcast and cable programs said
television’s depiction of kids is out of touch with the lives of real
children: in addition to the ethnic imbalance, television children have
fewer family ties, less interest in school, less religious faith and
more money than real kids.

" If you watch a number of the teen shows, the lack of
awareness of a larger world is striking," said Katharine E.
Heintz-Knowles, the author of the study and an assistant professor of
communications at the University of Washington. group, including young
people (64%) and blacks (also 64%), agreed with Dole’s charges, the poll
found.

An overwhelming majority of young people polled also said television
should help teach them values, but instead often show people getting
away with—and sometimes triumphing by—deceitful behavior or physical
aggression.

Researchers interviewed an ethnically balanced sample of children
nationwide via telephone

"We ought to listen to what kids themselves say and 82% of them
say the media should teach them right from wrong," said James P.
Steyer, Oakland-based president of Children Now

Family Policy
A Publication of The Family Research Council
By Robert H. Knight, Director of Cultural Studies

‘Cultural Pollution’
‘The Pernicious Effects of TV Sex and Violence’

According to a May, 1994 national public opinion survey commissioned
by the Family Research Council:

81% of those queried said that television "shows too much
violence,"

75% said that TV has "too much sexually explicit
material."

90% agreed with the idea that television violence has contributed to
the increase in violence in American society

53% said that it had contributed "a great deal."

Only 9% said that it had no effect.

As for cultural values, the poll showed that 86% believe that
television has contributed to "a decline in values,"

49% said it has contributed "a great deal"

Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL) says his staff has "discovered nearly
3,000 scholarly articles and studies on the harmful effects of
television violence on children and adults."

…at least 200 studies show a link between TV violence and
aggressiveness in children…According to psychologist Brian L. Wilcox,
these studies show that TV violence has the following effects: Copy-cat
violence: Some viewers directly imitate or copy aggressive behavior seen
on television. For example, in October 1993, a young girl was killed in
a mobile home fire that was set by her five-year-old brother who had
been watching the lead characters on Beavis and Butthead set fires on
MTV.

Exaggerated fears: People who watch lots of TV violence feel the
world around them is a more dangerous place than those who don’t watch
much television.

Removal of inhibitions: Viewing TV violence can remove or reduce
inhibitions that would normally preclude aggressive behavior.

Desensitization: Children who watch repeated acts of violence on TV
are less horrified by it in real life. Some people develop a
"bystander" mentality, in which real violence is viewed as
unreal. One study (Liebert & Sprafkin, 1988) found that steady
consumption of TV violence spawns antisocial attitudes and a perception
of violence as a first-resort way to solve problems.

In April, 1992, the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA)
tracked TV violence during an 18 hour period on 10 broadcast and cable
channels. The resultant study, "A Day in the Life of
Television," documented violence of all kinds, from fictional to
cartoon to news reports and movie promotions. Overall, the researchers
recorded 1,846 violent scenes. Two years later, in April, 1994, the
research was repeated, with startling results in a study released in
August, 1994: Violent scenes increased to 2,605, a rise of 41%

The hourly rate increased from 10 to almost 15 scenes of violence
per channel.

Live-threatening violence increased by 67% from 751 scenes to 1,252.

Incidents involving gunplay rose 45%, from 362 to 526.

Violence in promotional spots for upcoming shows and movies
increased by 69%.

The only area to show a decrease was in children’s toy commercials,
where violence dropped by 85%, for 188 scenes to only 28.

A Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) study of network prime
time programming that compared the premiere episodes of 1992 prime time
show with those of 1993, found that network TV violence has declined.
Although the total amount of violence rose slightly (from 338 to 361
scenes) the scenes of "serious violence" (physical assaults
that go beyond a single punch, slap or push) dropped by 28% (from 119 to
93) and dropped by 50% in promotional spots.

Gunplay dropped even more, by 58% (from 57 to 24 scenes). Noting
that the 1993-1994 CBS program lineup is "much less violent than it
was 10 years ago," CBS’ Bressan says the trend away from prime time
violence at CBS has not been triggered by research, but "because
our viewers are concerned."

According to the CMPA, seven of the top 10 show rated for
"serious violence" are syndicated.

According to "Big World, Small Screen," a 1992 report from
the American Psychological Association, a child who watches an average
of two to four hours of TV a day will have witnessed 8,000 homicides and
100,000 other acts of violence by the time he reaches junior high
school. He will have seen 20,000 homicides by the time he graduates from
high school

The report concludes, "Television can cause aggressive behavior
and can cultivate values favoring the use of aggression."

Other key studies draw similar conclusions. For example: In 1956,
two dozen four-year-olds were split into two groups. One group watched a
violence-laden "Woody Woodpecker" cartoon. The other watched a
non-violent cartoon, "The Little Red Hen." Afterward,
researchers observed that the "Woody Woodpecker" children were
more prone to get into fights and arguments with other children, to
break toys and be disruptive and destructive.

In 1960, Leonard Eron and L. Rowell Huesmann, two University Of
Illinois psychologists, initiated a longitudinal survey of 875 third
graders and their parents in a semi-rural New York County. Over time,
Eron found a high correlation between boys who had viewed violent
television at age eight and their aggressiveness at 19. He also found
that boy who had ranked low on aggression at age eight but watched
violent TV showed higher rates of aggression than boys who had
originally ranked high on aggression but had not watched violent TV.
When Eron revisited the subjects at age 30, he found "no relation
to what they were watching at age 19 or at age 30. But there was a
strong relation between what they watched at age eight and their
aggressive behavior at age 19 and at age 30."

In 1967, George Gerbner of the University of Pennsylvania began
documenting the amount of violence on television and studying the
effects on viewers. Using measures like frequency of violence, rate of
violence per program per hour, and the role that the main character
played as perpetrator/victim of violence, he concluded that "heavy
viewers of violence, especially children and youth, tended to be more
concerned about their personal safety and more likely to perceive the
real world as being dangerous and frightening than those persons who
watched very little television." Furthermore, Gerbner found that
exposure to TV violence desensitizes viewers to acts of violence and
sometimes incites viewers to violence.

In 1972, the U.S. Surgeon General released "Television and
Growing Up: The Impact of Televised Violence," a report that
included five volumes of research collected by the National Institute of
Mental Health (NIMH). The report concluded that there is a causal
relationship between children’s viewing of violent programs and
subsequent aggressive behavior. The report stressed, however, that this
applies only to children who are predisposed toward aggression.

In 1982, NIMH released an update of the 1972 Surgeon General’s
report. This new study concluded that viewing TV violence caused
aggressive behavior in children and youth regardless of predisposition.
The only significant criticism of this finding came from a study funded
by NBC, which found that "these short-term effects found
experimentally do not lead to stable patterns in terms of
aggression."

University of Washington researcher Brandon S. Centerwall compared
white homicide rates between 1945 and 1974 in South Africa, and the
United States and Canada. (The South African government did not permit
television broadcasting until 1975.) Centerwall found that the annual
homicide rate in the U.S. increased by 93% from 1945 to 1974; in South
Africa, where television was banned, the white homicide rate fell by 7.2
percent during the same period; and in Canada, the homicide rate
increased by 92%. For Canada and the United States, there was a lag of
10 to 15 years between TV introduction and a doubling of the homicide
rate. In South Africa, by 1987, white homicides had increased by 130%.

In 1978, television came to a remote Canadian town call
"Notel" by the researchers, who used a double-blind design to
compare 45 first- and second-grade students in "Notel" with
children in two communities that had already had TV. Rates of physical
aggression (hitting, shoving, and biting) did not significantly change
in the communities that already had TV, but "Notel" children
increased their aggressive activities by 160% within two years.

In 1990, G. Comstock and H. Paik did a meta-analysis of 200 previous
studies, looking at the relationship between violent programming and
aggressive behavior, including criminal activity. Overall they found a
significant correlation between viewing and behavior.

The Hollywood Reporter
August 5-7, 1994
By Brooks Boliek

‘Study: results ‘startling’; net exec calls it ‘absurd’

The study was conducted by the nonprofit Washington-based media
watchdog group (Center for Media and Public Affairs) and funded by the
New York-based Guggenheim Foundation. It examined programming on an
18-hour broadcast day, Thursday, April 7, on the Washington affiliates
of the four major networks, the Paramount station here, PBS and four
cable services: HBO, MTV, WTBS, USA Network.

It included not only network entertainment programming but national
news, local news and syndicated programming not scheduled by the network
as well as commercials and promos.

The center defined violence as: "Any deliberate act of physical
force or use of a weapon on an attempt to achieve a goal, further a
cause, stop the action of another, act out of angry impulse, defend
oneself from attack, secure some material reward or merely to intimidate
others." Also, any discussions or descriptions of violence were
included for nonfiction programming but not for fictional programming.

The inquiry is a companion to a similar study the center did two
years ago for the first Thursday of April that was published in TV
Guide, which funded the study.

According to the survey, violent scenes or verbal mentions of
violence aired on television were up 41% since 1992.

According the center’s analysis, there were 2,605 scenes of violence
or mentions of violence in 1994 compared with 1,846 in 1992.

The four networks’ total came to 765 violent scenes or mentions in
1994 compared with 444 in 1992.

The cable networks accounted for 1,356 scenes or mentions in 1994
compared with 989 in 1992.

Paramount and PBS accounted for 484 in 1994 compared with 989 in
1992.

The Grand Rapids Press
May 7, 1994
The Associated Press

‘Faith slowly finds way into prime-time television’

In a study published in the recent issue of the Review of Religious
Research, researchers from the University of Dayton, Northwester
University Medical Center and Duke University Medical Center examined a
random sample of 100 episodes of network television in 1990. Out of
1,462 characters, only 82, or 5.6%, had an identifiable religious
affiliation.

Further, five of the 82 characters were religious cult members,
while no characters were portrayed as members of the Jewish faith.

If few characters have an identifiable religious affiliation, even
fewer engage in prayer, attend church or participate in group religious
activities, the study found.

"The data clearly indicate that the exploration of religion and
spirituality in the lives of fictional characters is nearly invisible on
network television," the researchers concluded.

In the Media Research Center study, researchers found only 116
treatments of religion in more than 1,000 hours of prime-time
programming in 1993.

"Those who assert that sitcoms, dramatic series, telefilms and
miniseries engage in relentless religion-bashing are wrong….It is
clear that Hollywood ignores religion far more than it demeans it,"
said the study, "Faith in a Box: Prime Time on Religion."

The Hollywood Reporter
May 2, 1994
By Brooks Boliek

‘Hollywood owns up to role in violence, study finds’

The U.S. News and World Report and the UCLA Center for Communication
Policy survey was released Saturday. The survey was mailed to 6,300
decision-makers in the industry and 867 people had returned the
questionnaire by April 23, giving a response rate of 13.67%. Usually,
response rates for surveys of this type run about 5%.

found that more than half of Hollywood’s elite say violence in the
entertainment media is a serious problem and that almost all say
violence in the media is a contributing factor to violence in American
society.

59% of the Hollywood elite say violence in entertainment media is a
serious problem. 79% of the general public say the interment media is a
serious problem.

87% say violence in the media is a factor in contributing to
violence in society (57% say it is a minor contributor and 30% say it is
a major contributor, nearly mirroring the public’s views.)

Only 40% of the Hollywood elite thing government can potentially
play a constructive role in regard to violence on television while 59%
of the public say the government can play a constructive role.

65% of the public say Dan Quayle was essentially right when he said
that the people who control television have little sympathy with
traditional values whereas only 25% of Hollywood elite agree that he is
right.

63% of the Hollywood elite criticize the industry for
"glorifying" violence.

58% of the Hollywood elite admit to having avoided watching a
program because of its violent content and 76% say they have prevented
or discouraged their children from watching a violent show.

Nearly three-fourths, 72% of the Hollywood elite say the amount of
violent programming on TV has increased.

45% of Hollywood elite say the overall quality of TV programming has
worsened.

While the responses from the elite were fairly uniform, there was a
dichotomy between the television and movie industries, Cole said.

"There’s a fair amount of tension between the TV and
film," he said. "The television people think that they have
been getting most of the blame and that film has been getting somewhat
of a free ride."

The Wall Street Journal
March 31, 1994
By Elizabeth Jensen

"With ‘Christy,’ CBS Goes Where Few Have Gone Before– to a Religious
Series"

Even though Gallup surveys consistently say that around 40% of
Americans attend church services at least once a week, network
television hasn’t addressed religion in a serious way in its prime-time
lineup. When it has dealt with religion, it is typically as a foil in
sitcoms like NBC’s "Amen," which starred Sherman Hemsley as a
deacon.

USA Weekend
March 18-20, 1994
By Michael Medved

‘It’s Safe To Go Back In The Dark’

A study by Paul Kagen Associates, one of the industry’s most
respected consulting firms, declared: "Ironically, while R-rated
films are less likely to score big at the box office and are less
profitable than films with other ratings … the percentage of R-raters
in the mix has increased from 50.3 percent in 1989 to 58.2 percent in
1991."

While the number of G and PG movies rose just slightly, from 16.5%
of all releases in 1991 to 19.8% in 1993, the number of fine family
films showed a spectacular increase.

The Hollywood Reporter
March 4-6, 1994
By Kirk Honeycutt

‘Christian group picks top films’

In Announcing the choices at Arnie Morton’s of Chicago restaurant,
Ted Baehr, who publishes Movieguide – a monthly magazine reviewing
current films for their content as well as artistic values m- said that
1993 was a year of "most unexpected and encouraging signs of
change." According to Baehr, 64% of the top 25 grossing films had
such themes And of the same group of films, 33% were deemed acceptable
by Movieguide.

Christian Financial Concepts
Money Maters
March 1994
Chuck Thompson, Editor

‘Message to Hollywood’

Michael Medved hired researcher Michael Cain to look at movies’
average median gross. Cain a researcher for the Screen Actor’s Guild,
found that R-rated movies in the last 20 years have produced a median
gross of about $5 million.

For G and PG movies, the average median gross has been more than $15
million.

Medved shared these findings in a meeting with 20th Century Fox’s
Joe Roth, who hired Paul Kagen, the biggest researcher in Hollywood, to
do further study. What Kagen discovered was that family movies were four
times more likely to make in excess of $100 million, Baehr says.

"When the church got involved in ’33 there had been 10 years of
fighting to clean up movies," Ted Baehr says. "There were
censorship boards all over the country, and Hollywood was doing poorly
on the worldwide box office. Furthermore, the U.S. government was
threatening to censor Hollywood just as it is today. AS an alternative,
church leaders offered to establish a rating system, and Hollywood
agreed. Movies were reviewed by the Catholic church and the Protestant
Film Office and, during this period Hollywood prospered. "By the
time the ’60’s rolled around, 90% of the people in the world were going
to Hollywood movies," Baehr says. "The weekly attendance, as
Michael Medved points out in his book Hollywood vs. America, was about
44 million weekly." But with in three years after the church pulled
out of Hollywood in 1966, weekly attendance had dropped to 17 million.
"It’s never recovered," Baehr notes. "It’s now up to
about 19 million."

"The average child watches 15,000 to 40,000 hours of television
by the time he’s 17," Baehr says. "He goes to school for about
11,000 hours, and he spends about 2,000 hours with his parents."

Looking back to his days as director of the Television Center at
City University of new York, Baehr remembers that educational theories
called for a three step process of: (1) Modeling behavior (2) Repeating
that behavior, and (3) Reinforcing that behavior.

"That is exactly what television is doing," he says.
"It models cruelty and violence, and it repeats the behavior. By
the time he’s 17, the average child sees 200,000 to 400,000 sex acts on
television, 100,000 to 200,000 acts of violence, and 17,000 to 33,000
murders."

USA Today
April 30, 1993
By Tom Green

‘Moviegoers don’t see their values on screen’

A poll of 1,200 moviegoers nationwide, commissioned by the
Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival, found
that 77% don’t feel Hollywood portrays their values and that even PG
films can have too much violence, bad
language, and sex.

Asked to express concerns about films, 28% in the Heartland survey
said there was too much violence.

In other findings, 42% were "uncomfortable" at a PG movie
with violence

57% felt discomfort at a PG movie with sex

And 64% defend the current movie rating system as "a reliable
guide to films."

Daily Variety
March 22, 1993
By Peter Bart
‘Lowest
common denominator doesn’t work anymore’
In his talk at Show West
earlier this month, Mark Canton, chairman of Columbia, observed that
PG-rated movies were almost three times more likely to reach the $100
million mark than R films.

…but last year there were 374 R ratings awarded vs. 186 G and PG
and 119 PG-13s. "Some 58% of all movies are R-rated," says
Canton, "and the number of PG films has been dropping. Any smart
business person can see what we must do—make more PG films."

Updated by: Scott Rolfe
Corporate Services Director,

The Dove Foundation

Copyright  © 1996, The Dove Foundation. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.dove.org/stats.htm